what can cause Visual Studio to rebuild my entire solution all the time? - visual-studio

I have a largeish solution in Visual Studio 2008 (around 30 projects, all C# and Script#), including some test projects.
When I start the application or run my tests, way to often Visual Studio rebuilds everything rather than just the changed parts and their dependencies.
If I don't change anything at all, it will not rebuild, but as soon as I change any file in any project, everything in the entire solution will be rebuilt, even the 90% of projects which were not affected at all.
Does anyone have an idea of what the problem can be, or provide me a hint of where I can start troubleshooting it?
Edit: To clarify, all projects in the solution are rebuilt, even those which are not directly or indirectly dependent on the project that has actually been modified. Even those which the modified project depends on, so it can't be a simple project reference issue.

The build sequence is determined by the project references (dependencies).
To avoid to build the projects depending on the project you've edited, you can use Build Current under the menu Build.
I setup CTL+B as shortcut to Build Current which saved me a lot of time than F6. Everytime I just use CTL+B after I save a file.
Hopefully this will help.

You can use the configuration manager to set up a specific config for your sln that will only build the projects you specify. You can find it under Build->Configuration Manager

Related

VS 2012 .user file causes unnecessary builds

There are a number of post in relation to Visual Studio building projects when not necessary. However, none seem to cover this particular issue.
I'm running Visual Studio 2012 Professional Update 4.
In my solution, I have a unit test project that has a project reference to a BizTalk Transforms project. This in-turn has a project reference to a BizTalk schemas project.
Every time I choose to run a unit test, the whole solution is built, even though no changes have been made.
The first line displayed in the build window is as follows:
Input file
'C:\Workspaces\rbowman\Branches\Current-branchRB\WareHouse\FFF.Enterprise.WareHouse.Schemas\FFF.Enterprise.WareHouse.Schemas.btproj.user'
is modified after output file
'C:\Workspaces\rbowman\Branches\Current-branchRB\WareHouse\FFF.Enterprise.WareHouse.Schemas\bin\Release\FFF.Enterprise.WareHouse.Schemas.pdb'.
Note: it seems to be the .user file that's causing the rebuild.
Does anyone know how to prevent this? Strange but I only seem to be getting the problem with BizTalk proj files. I am seeing this behavior across multiple solutions but the problem file is always identified as a btproj.user.
This screencast illustrates the problem: screencast link
You should remove the *.user file from your source control.
These files store user specific settings and should never be checked into source control.
I had the same problem. BizTalk projects insist on updating the btproj.user file on every build, resulting in a full rebuild every time.
I solved the problem with the following workaround: Set the ACL Write Flag on Deny. The build cannot update the file and the projects are only build when actually needed.
In my case build time went from 10 minutes to 2.
If you have just opened the solution, even if nothing has changed since the last time you built, if you click Run All, it will as per the description in Test Explorer do a build.

Visual Studio 2010 F5 Debugging C++ is not Rebuilding

I have a Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate C++ project (not managed or .NET). When I press F5 (i.e., start debugging), I want it to save all the files, rebuild those that changed, link the whole thing, and then run. Instead, it appears to use the last build. Thus, when I try to step into a function or something, I get the following error:
Based on my research, I have verified these options, the first three of which are in the Options dialog (can be reached under "Debug->Options and Settings"):
"Projects and Solutions->Build and Run->Only build startup projects and dependencies on Run" is checked. Some research indicated that it should be unchecked, but in my case I actually do only want it to rebuild the startup project. For what it's worth, I've tried unchecking it, with no effect.
"Projects and Solutions->Build and Run->On Run, when projects are out of date:" is set to "Always build".
"Debugging->Edit and Continue->Enable Edit and Continue" is checked, though it's greyed out.
In the Configuration Manager ("Build->Configuration Manager"), all solution configurations and platforms have their "Build" checkbox checked.
I have also tried deleting all Debug and Release directories as well as the .sdf and ipch directory.
For completeness, I suppose I should mention that I'm using precompiled headers, though I kinda doubt it matters.
[EDIT: I should note that it only seems to be one file (a .h file) that's doing it. I tried renaming it and recompiling, and also removing it from the solution and adding it back in, but it didn't work. ]
I was able to bring my solution back into the right state after deleting all .suo and .csproj.user files. Answer led to this solution. Hope this saves someone time.
I fell into this state after installing Ultimate over Professional and running profiling tools.
Once I had similar problem with my C# project and I think I have tried every possible suggestion available on internet but none worked and then this is what I have done:
Created an empty Project
Added startup function to verify that it does not show any error
Imported all my source code manually one by one
So, Yes, it was the solution. You already have done a lot so I would say you can get lucky by trying here and there however having a new project and importing your individual source file would be faster.
Another solution could be that switching the platform. I noticed that when I when to project properties, the new project I had just created had a platform of 'win32' and my other projects in the same solution had it set at x64. After I switched my project to x64, everything worked just fine. This worked for my interop(C,C+, C#) project and hopefully works for other projects as well.
I have successfully resolved it, try the following:
remove all temporary and intellisense files
remove all project from solution and then add them back(most important)
check projects 'Frameworks and References' to ensure they are valid

VS2010 always rebuilds solution?

I have a solution with 40 projects in it. I've recently reconfigured output path for each of these projects to this value:
..\Output
Change was made in *.csproj files for every build configuration.
This change did what was expected (gather all compiled assemblies into one folder) but unusual side effect is - every time I hit F5 Debug, portion of the (around 40%) assemblies always gets rebuilt. I have tested this several times without any changes to the projects themselves.
Once I undid changes build behaved as before.
I need help resolving this issue.
This issue is solved by changing the project files, cleaning solution, deleting all bin folders by hand, restarting Visual studio and rebuilding everything.
I would guess that the assemblies that get rebuilt are referenced from the project you are trying to build? Check the references in one of the projects, and see if this is correct. If so, you might try to adjust the properties for each reference, such as "Copy Local", and/or "Specific Version"; maybe each project "thinks" it needs to rebuild the other projects it references in order to achieve the same version number or something like that.

Visual Studio 2010: Building a solution with CTRL+SHIFT+B doesn't create new DLLs?

After consecutive builds of a solution without making any changes to an assembly's code or any of its referenced assemblies' code, I've noticed that new DLLs are not compiled in the build folder (ie, the DLLs still have the old date and time). However, if I make any code changes and then do a build of the solution, new DLLs are written.
I've also discovered that doing a rebuild (as opposed to a standard build) does force VS to compile new DLLs. Cleaning the solution and doing a standard build also causes this.
About my initial issue of new DLLs not being compiled on a standard rebuild: is this by design? It's not a problem as I can just create a macro that does a rebuild and assign it to CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+B, but I would like to know for peace of mind due to some issues that have occurred with past deployments that have pointed the correct DLLs potentially not being properly copied over to the production servers.
It's behaving correctly. A "build" (as opposed to a "rebuild") only builds the things that have changed since the last build.
You're seeing by-design behaviour. A Build command will only trigger a build of those projects in your solution whose source/settings have changed. Obviously used more often and saves time for the developer.
MSDN's How to Prepare and Manage Builds for Visual Studio 2005
Choose Build or Build Solution to compile only those project files and components that have changed since the last build.
More on Rebuild: Difference between Rebuild and Clean + Build in Visual Studio

How to determine why visual studio might be skipping projects when building a solution

I am debugging someone else's work and the solution is quite large. When I try to build the entire thing, several projects within the solution don't build and just skip. Viewing the output window during the build process says:
1>------ Skipped Rebuild All: Project: pr1lib ------
How can I determine why these builds were skipped? I am unable to find additional output.
This is with VS2008 and the solution is comprised of c# and c++ code.
Right click the solution, choose Properties and then Configuration Properties. Here you can choose which projects to build.
[edit]:
See Kdt's comment: ... when I looked in configuration properties ... the project build target was configured for "Mixed Platforms" while the solution was set to build "Any CPU".
*When this problem happened to me, The main project only had 'Any CPU' and it set the child dll to 'any CPU' too, however, I'd deleted that profile and left only 'x86'. Picking x86 for just the dll make it start working
[/edit]
Build, rebuild, and clean operations were being skipped. Unloading and reloading didn't help, and neither did restarting Visual Studio.
Once I removed the project from the solution and added it back, it is no longer skipped. To remove it, in Solution Explorer, right-click the project > Remove > OK. To add it back, in Solution Explorer, right-click the solution > Add > Existing Project and select your project
I just had the same problem- "unload project" and "reload project" solved the issue !
Restarting Visual Studio did the trick
If the confixguration is x64 and the x64 compiler isn't installed it will skip the project.
My solution is the same as mentioned previously: Delete -> Add existing project
But this solution implies that references between projects get gone
To avoid re-adding references: and in case if you use version-control system like GIT or TFS or whatever, it is possible to acheve goal with the following steps:
Make shure that all the changes are commited / checked-in before the operation
Go through all projects deletting them from solution and adding-existing them
Notice that the .sln file has changed
Keep the new .sln file, but undo the changes to all the .cspoj files with the version-control system
I had a weird one that may be worth documenting amongst the other possibilities here..
I'd added a Shared Project to my solution, with code that was used in two or three of the other projects. As you're aware - Shared Projects are just code, and not really a project in the traditional sense.. You can't 'build' a shared project, it's just code that is embedded into the other projects, and then built there.
But somehow my solution file had been updated as if the shared project was it's own thing that needed building. I'm guessing then that any time I was trying to build and I hadn't changed the code in the shared project, then it figured 'nothing has changed, skip those builds'
I found the shared project in the solution.sln file like:
Project("{D954291E-2A0B-460D-934E-DC6B0785DB48}") = "Api.Common", "Api.Common\Api.Common.shproj", "{EC580471-D78A-4509-AC46-BD565553AD60}"
..which is fine. What isn't fine is that this project also appeared in the GlobalSection(ProjectConfigurationPlatforms) = postSolution like:
{EC580471-D78A-4509-AC46-BD565553AD60}.Debug|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU
{EC580471-D78A-4509-AC46-BD565553AD60}.Debug|Any CPU.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU
{EC580471-D78A-4509-AC46-BD565553AD60}.Release|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU
{EC580471-D78A-4509-AC46-BD565553AD60}.Release|Any CPU.Build.0 = Release|Any CPU
I removed those four lines from my .sln file, and now things seem happy again
The visual studio 2008 , it can be because 64 bit compiler wouldn't have installed.
Control Panel --> Programs and Features -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 professional --> [double click]
On Visual Studio Dialog
Next --> Add/ remove Features --> (Under) Visual C++ --> (select) x64 compiler and Tools
The first thing you need to do is diagnose why the build is skipping projects. So to get a detailed build output change the verbosity to detailed in the following place in Visual Studio.
Problem exists in VS 2010 as well; of the proposed solutions: editing build config, cleaning, changing/re-changing target framework, do NOT work. But unloading and reloading the project does.
I've just had this issue, and was able to resolve it by removing the hidden .vs folder in the topmost folder. After restarting Visual Studio everything worked again.
Hey, just fixed this one. Thought it might help. You most likely didn't install corresponding compilers along with the visual studio. This happened to me today - by default, VS 2008 installer doesn't install x64 C++ compiler.
If you have SP1, uninstall it before changing VS installation. When done, install SP1 again.
Close visual studio
Open the sln file with notepad
delete all of the things like this :
{B546C55D-9321-4FC0-B25C-46844222BEBE}.Debug with
Fakes|x86.ActiveCfg = Debug with Fakes|x86 (there will be a bunch of
them)
4.save the file
5.open visual studio and all better
Go to the build menu and choose "configuration manager". This will show which projects are configured to build in your selected configuration.
I had a similar thing just happen to me. I'm not sure what the problem was, but it would not Clean, Build, Rebuild, etc. I am operating in Visual Studio 2017 and wanted a netstandard2.0 assembly. The issue for me was that somehow the project type was incorrect, maybe I started from a netcoreapp class library, something like that, stuck in the Solution file, I do not recall. Anyway, I backed up the project, created a new netstandard class library project, and factored in the backed up bits, and that fixed it for me. HTH someone.
i updated to 15.9.11 , ... after some builds, same problem:most projects are skipped (which build a second ago without problems). Unloading/reloading the solution helps always in my case, but it will happen again soon.
I have no idea why... except a big bug in VS2017
I checked configuration manager , all checkmarks are set to build.
Maybe, it has something to do with nuget packages, but that is just a guess
The solution has only c++/vcxproj, no csproj. 64 and 32 are installed both
This happened to me in VS 2019, and the solution was to simply restart visual studio.
My build configuration was never modified.
I checked-in my project to source control from one computer and downloaded it to another and it will not build properly there. It will skip building projects and didn't even create the master \Debug folder for outputs.
The solution (VS2019) is to right click on solution and select Configuration Manager.
I saw the build checkbox was not checked for two projects that I was building (shown below). I don't know why they were unchecked but checking them and building project worked!
Right click on solution ->Remove then Add the existing project, this worked for me.
Had the same problem, found out that the project setting was for Itanium CPU, changing it to Intel fixed it.
Was running into the same problem with VS2005, all the configurations were correct .
It was even skipping the Clean project command.
Finally Unloading /Reloading did the magic.
Right click on Solution at at your solution explorer, then, click on Property at bottom of the menu. In the property windows, click on Configuration Properties -> Configuration on the left pane, you will see the list of projects on right pane, make sure Build check box is checked in the popup window.
If your solution contains a NuGet project (*.nuproj) file, try unloading it and then rebuilding your solution.
This worked for me after none of the above worked.
I had similar problem, I had one project which could not load in solution explorer due to some reason. When I loaded that project it worked like a charm.
I find that sometimes when you have target platform as set to lets say x86 in your solution and in your projects the project does not actually always had it selected.
To double check go to the project properties and see if you can select that platform in the Build->Platform setting if you can not then you will need to go to the configuration manager and create that configuration.
I had this problem with some Windows CE projects on a new PC. "Unload project" and "Reload project" appeared to fix the problem, but actually Visual Studio had simply switched to a different platform and built that.
It turned out that although my WinCE platform was shown as the active platform, Visual Studio didn't "really" see it. The solution was to reinstall the WinCE SDK with administrator priveleges:
Make sure Visual Studio 2008 is not running.
Open a “Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt” as Administrator. On Windows 7 just right click the short cut and pick the “Run as administrator” option.
Enter the following command: msiexec /log SDKInstallLog.txt /package <the path to your .msi file>
When asked if you wish to do a custom or complete install pick custom, and instruct the installer to omit the installation of the documentation (this step was not necessary in my case; in fact I just asked it to "repair" the existing installation.)
Install
VS 2008 will skip x64 targets if you don't have the x64 compiler installed. VS 2008 does not by default. Kind of a duh, thing.
I had a very similar issue after generating a project from a decompiler from Telerik, then trying to recompile it. The project was skipped whenever I tried to rebuild it. Tried a lot of the suggestions above, but for me, it was the .NET Framework selected in the project properties.
Right-click project in solution file, select properties, application tab, change target framework from 4.0 to 3.5.
Then, rebuild, and I got a bunch of assembly reference missing errors, which makes sense since I haven't added references to them yet.
I update one small update of Visual Studio 2017 and then the installer reminds me to restart my computer,but I did not restart.When I build my project or solution in Visual Studio 2017,I meet the same above problem.I guess the update maybe the key,so I restart my computer,I did it.:>
I had this problem in Visual Studio 2017 15.9.4 and after some searching and putting some time I found out that in my solution the .csproj file of one of projects got corrupted after merging in TFS. (I could build other projects by unloading the problematic project from solution).
How I resolved my problem was that I compared the .csproj file before and after the merge and do fix that. And by fix I mean since my own project's type was .netStandard I removed unnecessary lines including Configuration PropertyGroup, all and others in the new .csproj file to make it similar to previous .netstandard-style version.

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